I agree with you about the incompetence, but I'm willing to pass the buck all the way to Washington for cutting the funding for levee improvement and a slow response once the storm was over. I hope to see heads roll and lessons learned.
Wasn't the levee funding cut like a couple of months ago? That didn't affect things on iota.
Additionally, I've read on these many threads somewhere that funds and equipment meant for fixing the levees was not where it was supposed to be nor used properly. All the money in DC won't help when the local guys are a bunch of (politically speaking) inbred criminals.
Bush declared a national disaster BEFORE Katrina hit and men and equipment was rolling to Louisiana before too. If the local guys are running around with their heads cut off, how can the feds take control easily. They have to work in concert with the local guys and if the local guys are freaking irresponsible idiots (to put a nice face on it), it makes the feds job incalculably more difficult.
The fault lies primarily with the local guys. And the people who could have left and didn't. How many able bodied people could have left, could have informed themselves about the hurricane, and didn't take it seriously? Obviously not everyone could have left on their own - the feeble, sick, old, and those caring for them. ANd the local govt sure as hell should have declared mandaotry evac two days before and used every single vehicle in the city to get people out. As well as vehcicles from around the state.
I knew what would happen when a severe hurricane would strike NO and I live 2 thousand miles away, and I'm not PhD. Why didn't the people who lived there what to speak of in charge supposedly not take it seriously?
And last but not least - the local guys for not stopping the looters in the beginning. That was totally insane and now they've got a tragedy on their hands they could have for the most part prevented.